Health and society in Finland: public health nurses' daily practice

Cultural Perceptions of Finnish Nursing Students Regarding People and Nurses of the United States: A Pilot Study

This pilot study measures cultural awareness through perceptions of 139 Finnish nursing students regarding American people and nurses. Inquiry was guided by cultural dimensions depicted in Leininger’s Sunrise Model. Statements of highest agreement were that: U.S. citizens frequently initiate lawsuits, have strong national identity, eagerly try new technological equipment, U.S. nurses have less authority than physicians, the U.S. shares technological advances with Third World countries. Statements of lowest agreement were that health care is available to all U.S. citizens, U.S. people live healthy lifestyles, U.S. nurses have knowledge of other cultures and knowledge of international health care issues, and U.S. citizens are law abiding. Almost half of the responses indicated neither agree nor disagree, with means between 2.7 and 3.3. Responses of Finnish students indicated stereotypical views of U.S. citizens and nurses.

Measuring the workload of community nurses in Ireland: a review of workload measurement systems

BACKGROUND

The primary community nursing service in Ireland is public health nursing and this unique healthcare role incorporates activities and responsibilities undertaken by a variety of health professionals in other countries. Capturing and comparing a measure of the work of any community nurse is complicated due to the difficulty in standardizing the nature of community nursing across care settings.

AIM

The aim of this paper was to review the varied approaches to measuring the workload/caseload of community nurses to evaluate how they may be applied to measure the workload of the public health nurse in the Irish Republic.

CONCLUSION

Many of the systems designed to measure nursing workload are reliant on measuring tasks and fail to capture the less tangible but core aspects of the public health nursing role like decision-making, assessment and case management.

IMPLICATIONS

There is a need to develop a workload measurement system for use by public health nurses in Ireland that is capable of measuring the uniqueness of the role.

The Impact of Social Support and Job Stress on Public Health Nurses' Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in Rural Taiwan

OBJECTIVE

To examine the relationship between job stress, social support, and organizational citizenship behaviors, by using job satisfaction and organizational commitment as intervening variables among public health nurses (PHNs) in rural areas of Taiwan.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional design was used to sample all 265 PHNs in two rural counties of Taiwan. Of those, 231 (87.2%) PHNs responded.

METHOD

A mailed survey questionnaire was sent to subjects for completion in early 2004. Responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analyses, and multiple regression analyses. With six multiple regression models, intervening effects were explored by the approach of Baron and Kenny (1986).

RESULTS

Supervisor support indirectly influenced organizational citizenship behaviors through the intervening effect of organizational commitment, whereas, kinship support, role ambiguity, and workload demonstrated direct impacts on organizational citizenship behaviors.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides insights into how social support and job stress impacted PHNs' organizational citizenship behaviors. Those PHNs who experienced more supervisor support exhibited higher levels of organizational citizenship behaviors via the intervening effect of organizational commitment.